BluGuitar BluBOX Speaker Cabinet Simulator

It was first unveiled at BluGuitar's Musikmesse booth A81 in Hall 11.0, and is expected to be ready for release within the fourth quarter of this year.

While there really is nothing better than having a properly miked amp, it is not always convenient or even practical to have them. There is also the issue of consistency where even when placed at the same exact spot the sound will be different as you move from venue to venue.

For this reason, gear manufacturers have been developing ways to allow amplifiers to connect direct to PA or recording consoles without the need for miking up speaker cabinets. To achieve this, BluGuitar decided to utilize impulse response technology, the same ones found on reverb plug-ins, but this time tweaked to properly emulate the characteristics of different speakers and baffles.

BluBOX is developed to provide guitarists with a good sounding PA feed and direct recording solution that can work with any guitar amplifier. In designing this unit, Thomas Blug drew inspiration from his 30 years of session work and touring experience. The press release expounds, "Thomas Blug has spent a lot of time to select the “go to guitar cabinets” that are basically the industry standard for great guitar sound. These are his very own cabinets heard on numerous music productions Thomas was involved with (from Stewart Copeland, Culture Beat, Snap, No Angels, TicTacToe to members of Deep Purple, Fokus, Simple Minds and many more). Utilising the latest Convolution Technology he then took impulse responses with various microphone positions and mics locking down every sonic detail."

Since it uses impulse response convolution technology, BluBOX is inherently digital. The company chose to go the digital route because analog technology cannot reproduce the complexities and nuances that separate different guitar cabinets and speakers. With digital tech, they were able to come close to how popular and sought after cabinets behave, and do so reliably at that. To ensure analog like low latency performance is felt, BluGuitar designed the unit to operate within 1 milli-second.

Thankfully, the interface of the unit looks and feels analog, with a simple rotary switch that lets you pic from 16 popular guitar cabs including 5 Marshall cabinets from 1965 to 1980, Vox cabinets, Mesa-Boogie ones and some from Fender. The unit also emulates BlueGuitar's own NanoCab and FatCab designs.

If you are looking for a practical and consistent solution for getting your guitar tone sounding natural while still going straight to console, then this may be worth checking out. The expected retail price for the BluGuitar BluBox is $319. Visit BluGuitar for further details.